ABOUT
ABOUT
MIGUEL ANGEL TORRES VEGA // MIGZ
“Observation becomes mindfulness, and mindfulness becomes memory.”
ARTIST STATEMENT
I absorb sensory experience and emotional atmosphere, then translate it through materials. I capture mood.
Everything begins with observation. Whether I am painting a portrait, magnifying the surface of a piece of fruit, or arranging found objects, I spend long periods looking—long enough for familiar things to reveal details that everyday life often asks us to overlook. The process becomes a form of mindfulness. The finished work is an invitation for the viewer to share that experience of slowing down.
Much of my work is created on modular reclaimed wood panels that are assembled into a single image and then separated into individual pieces. The fragmentation is intentional. Rather than allowing an image to be understood at a glance, the work asks viewers to spend time moving through it, reconstructing relationships between its parts. In doing so, they participate in the same careful attention that shaped the work in the first place.
My practice is rooted in observational drawing and painting, but I am less interested in reproducing appearances than in translating the experience of seeing. I think about the way the eye gathers information in fragments, how memory edits what we notice, and how emotion shapes perception. The work becomes an interpretation of lived experience rather than a record of it.
Every piece begins as an experiment—whether through unfamiliar materials or unexpected uses of familiar ones. As the work develops, experimentation gives way to immersion. Hours disappear as I become fully present with the subject. That state of sustained attention is as important to me as the finished object itself.
Across the ongoing Alternate Sides project, I explore people, places, objects, family histories, labor, migration, and cultural memory. These subjects vary, but they are connected by a shared belief: that ordinary moments become extraordinary when we give them the time they deserve. In a culture that encourages us to consume images in seconds, my work asks for something increasingly rare—patience, presence, and the willingness to look a little longer.
Art, for me, is not decoration. It is interpretation. It is a way of listening, understanding, and finding meaning in the quiet moments that shape our lives.
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ARTIST BIO
Miguel Torres (b. 1979), professionally known as MIGZ, is a New York–based artist and educator whose work explores observation, memory, identity, and cultural experience through painting, assemblage, and reclaimed materials.
Born and raised in North Amityville, New York, Torres holds a BFA in Graphic Design from SUNY Purchase, an M.S. in Teaching from Long Island University, and a Graduate Certificate in Art History from Lindenwood University. He began studying portrait and figure drawing in 1998 through the illustration program at the Fashion Institute of Technology and later expanded his practice into tattoo artistry, carrying an academic approach to portraiture into a permanent medium.
His ongoing body of work, Alternate Sides, transforms observational painting into an exercise in mindful attention. Working primarily on modular reclaimed wood panels, Torres creates images that cannot be fully understood in a single glance. Instead, viewers are encouraged to slow down, move through the composition, and discover meaning through sustained observation—mirroring the process through which the work itself was created.
Across the series, Torres investigates a wide range of subjects, including portraiture, community, labor, migration, family history, food, and cultural memory. Rather than treating these as separate narratives, he uses them as opportunities to examine how careful observation can deepen our understanding of the people and places that shape everyday life.
His use of reclaimed wood is both conceptual and material. Once used for structural purposes and discarded, the lumber becomes the foundation for stories that might otherwise go unseen. The material reinforces his interest in renewal, overlooked value, and the histories embedded within ordinary objects.
Torres’ work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Lincoln Center, the Hammer Museum, and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. He is a member of the artist collective Chop Shop and has taught visual arts in New York City public schools since 2013, following several years as a special education teacher.